September/October 2010
Larry Mallin credits his stellar career in the specialized world of wire chopping to his adherence to Boy Scout principles, a no-debt business philosophy, and hassle-free customer service.
By Jim Fowler
One of the proudest moments of his life, Larry Mallin says, was speaking at his grandson Zach Mallin’s investiture as an Eagle Scout, the highest rank a young man can achieve in the Boy Scouts of America (Irving, Texas). Zach is the fourth generation of Mallins to be active in Boy Scouts. Larry’s son, Jeffrey, also is an Eagle Scout. Larry himself made it to the second-highest level in Scouting, a Life Scout, and he has volunteered with the Boy Scout Heart of America Council (Kansas City, Mo.) for almost 40 years. “Scouting is a way of life,” Larry says, noting that he first became a Scout in 1942, when he was 11 years old. “Scouting helps you learn how to improve yourself and others, to help the young and the weak, and leave the world better than you found it.” Larry’s involvement in Scouting even prompted his father, Harry, to get involved as a troop committee member.
Mallin credits adherence to Boy Scout principles, in part, for the success of Mallin Brothers Co., a continuation of the company his father founded in Kansas City more than eight decades ago. For his father, Larry says, “his integrity was the most important thing to him—his reputation was part of his life. I most assuredly adopted that philosophy.” That approach has been consistent from Mallin’s first days as a child working in his father’s small “junk” company to the years he worked side by side first with his father and uncle, now with his son, to grow the family business into a prominent player in the wire-chopping niche. The results speak for themselves, with Mallin Brothers marking its 82nd anniversary this year and its 42nd year in wire chopping. It’s a personal and corporate success story that continues to unfold today.
A Father-Son Scrap Tradition
The Mallin family story in the United States started in 1898, when 35-year-old Simon Mallin and his wife emigrated from Warsaw, Poland, to join his two older brothers in Omaha, Neb. Simon started out working in a meatpacking house with his brothers, who looked after him. He later became a peddler and sometimes worked with Aaron Ferer, who established Aaron Ferer & Sons, a successful scrap processing company. That became something of a Mallin family joke, Larry says, as his grandfather never did as well as Ferer. (Aaron Ferer & Sons is still in business, now exclusively as a brokerage firm.)
Simon’s son, Harry, was born in Omaha in 1901. A few years later, Simon and his family left Omaha and began moving southward, setting up shop temporarily in Red Oak, Iowa, and then Trenton, Mo., before settling for good in Kansas City in 1907. Harry began peddling with his father five years later, at age 12, Larry Mallin says. Traveling in a horse-drawn wagon, the pair journeyed through Missouri as far south as the Oklahoma border. “That was a long way to peddle,” Larry says.
Harry Mallin met his future wife, Esther Mendelson, while he was drumming up industrial business. Esther “would ride with him in his Model T truck out in the country when he was calling on customers,” Larry says. Harry and Esther married in 1920, and eight years later Harry parted company with his father to establish Mallin Junk Co. “My grandfather promised my father that if he worked with him peddling, he would be able to continue his education,” Larry says. “It didn’t turn out that way—the promise wasn’t kept. They also had different business philosophies. My grandfather was a speculator, and dad was not.”
The yard Harry bought in downtown Kansas City was tiny by today’s standards: 42½ feet wide and 125 feet long. Though not physically large, the property—which was all he could afford—was close to industrial accounts. Harry and Esther worked together to build the business, handling ferrous and nonferrous metals, paper, bottles, tires, rags, and bones. Harry’s business card folded over and had a small hole in the front flap that revealed the back end of a pig. The inside bore the slogan, “We are not undertakers, but we deal in remains.” Larry still laughs when he recalls that card. “Don’t ask me why, but that slogan just tickled my dad. He had a wonderful sense of humor.”
Larry, who was born on Halloween in 1931, started helping at the yard when he was 5. One of his first jobs was walking to the corner to get water. “We didn’t have running water or a bathroom at the yard,” he remembers. To keep warm in winter, they would burn tires. Working under such primitive conditions might sound like a hardship, but to the young Larry “it seemed like a lot of fun, and those conditions didn’t last very long.” He also remembers putting bottles in different crates based on size and color.
By 1937 Mallin Junk had outgrown its original yard and moved to a larger property around the corner. That was the first of three expansions, with the company adding adjacent land each time to reach its current size of 7½ acres. In 1946 the company took another big step: When Harry’s younger brother, Joe, joined the firm after returning from service in World War II, the Mallins renamed the company Mallin Brothers Co. “Uncle Joe”—who had been a prisoner of war in Germany for 138 days—“was one of the best salesmen I ever met,” Larry states. “He could—and did—endear himself to everyone. He formed relationships very well. If I could write, I’d write a book about him. He had done everything and been more places than most people.”
While attending Paseo High School in Kansas City, Larry met Beverly Gilgus, who would become first his high-school sweetheart and later his wife. They had their first date in 1947 and were married five years later. As the Korean War got underway in 1950, Larry entered the U.S. Naval Reserve. He served eight years as a Personnelman 2nd Class, handling the personnel records for a naval air squadron. He juggled his reserve duties with attending college at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and helping out in the family scrap business. After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1952, Larry started working full time in the business while also attending law school at night. He juggled work and school for a year before deciding to focus on his scrap career. “When I left law school,” he says, “the dean of the school called me into his office and asked why I was leaving. I told him, ‘because I’d rather be a good junkman than a mediocre lawyer.’”
Harry believed that when a family member joined the company full time, that individual became an equal partner, with an equal say and the same salary as the others. “It was great,” Larry says. “My father, uncle, and I got along famously. We each had our responsibilities.” He recalls his father as a gentle, even-natured man who followed the motto, “All things in moderation.” “I learned so much from him, all of the good characteristics—the integrity portion of the business,” Larry says. “And he had a great sense of humor.”
It was his dad’s ever-present sense of humor, in fact, that startled Larry’s wife when he was in the U.S. Naval Reserve. Larry was assigned to an aviation squadron that flew the Vought Corsair F4U. He loved being around airplanes, he says, so he volunteered to hook the plane to the tug and tow it to the hangar. “Unlike a good tractor-trailer driver, I swung the tail around, and it hit a steel support that did some serious damage to the aircraft,” he says. “My dad told Beverly I’d have to stay in the Navy until I worked off the cost of the damages.”
Blazing the Wire Chopping Trail
In 1964 Larry began talking to his dad about chopping wire rather than burning it, as the company had done for years. Mallin Brothers already had several wire manufacturers as customers, and it was doing a substantial business handling other dealers’ insulated wire. Also, he says, “restrictions for burning wire were becoming more and more stringent, and I just thought wire chopping was the way to go. It was a new technology that offered many benefits.”
It took Larry four years to persuade his father to enter the wire-chopping business, and he still considers that “probably the best sales pitch I ever made.” Mallin Brothers installed its first chopping line in 1968, making it a pioneer in that scrap processing niche, Larry says. Notably, the company did not borrow money to buy the equipment. “My dad lived through the Depression, and he never forgot it,” Larry explains. “Zero indebtedness has been and continues to be our business philosophy. Our growth is internally funded. Everything that we have, we own.”
Larry’s son Jeffrey became a full-time, equal partner in the company in 1981. He and his grandfather Harry were responsible for the administrative side of the business, while Larry and Joe handled sales. Larry also came up with a new slogan—“Service With Class”—for the company. “We decided that the old words undertakers and remains no longer represented our business. It was a great joke for my dad, but it wasn’t too good for advertising.”
In the subsequent years, Mallin Brothers became one of the premier wire-chopping companies in the United States, if not the world. With the recent expansion of its existing chopping lines and the installation of a new shredding line, which doubled its capacity, the company processes tens of millions of pounds of aluminum and copper wire annually. “We’ve been blessed,” Larry says. “Our company has grown exponentially.”
Mallin Brothers’ goal is to be an “aggravation-free” company for its customers, Larry says. “They like doing business with us, and that’s what counts.” He does recall one rather curious rejection some years ago, however. “We sold a load of No. 1 bare bright copper chops to a customer who rejected the load because of odor—it smelled bad to them. We couldn’t smell anything, but we took the load back. In the meantime the market had strengthened, and we sold the material for 11 cents a pound more to another consumer. I was delighted. That was the one and only rejection I’ve ever had or heard of on the basis of smell.”
A Feet-First Retirement Plan
Today, Jeffrey is president of the company, and Larry serves as CEO, though he functions more as a senior adviser, he says. “I love that role. As a father, there can’t be anything more rewarding than seeing your son’s success,” Larry says. “I can’t emphasize enough how lucky I am to have a son like Jeffrey.”
Though the two of them don’t agree on everything, and they have different strengths, Larry views their differences as a plus. Jeffrey is the detail person, he notes, while he is “somewhat creative,” but their differences have never affected their working relationship. “My son has the benefit of having a father who grew up in the business with his father,” he says. “If there was ever an occasion in the past when something upset me while working with my father, I have tried not to repeat that with my son. Jeffrey and I have always worked together as equal partners.” Even after being business partners for almost 30 years, father and son still enjoy each other’s company to the point where Larry and Beverly vacation at least once a year with Jeffrey and his family. “I guess if you spend your working time and your spare time together, it’s a pretty good relationship,” he observes.
Looking forward, Larry predicts “continued, measured growth” for Mallin Brothers, which includes the recent installation of the new cable shredding line. He also believes the company will remain family owned. “We’ve been approached many times to sell,” he says, “but I don’t see it in our future,” not as long as the company has family members willing to run it. He notes that Jeffrey’s daughter is in college, and his son begins college in the fall. “I’m trying to be a good grandfather, so I don’t bring up joining the business to [my granddaughter],” he says. “That’s between father and daughter. I understand that my grandson is planning to major in business. All I can say is, I can’t imagine a better business than ours.”
Larry also can’t imagine retiring from the business he loves, even after working full time in it for 58 years. “In this company, we have what we call the feet-first retirement plan,” he says with a chuckle. “It occurs when they carry you out the front door. It’s the plan my dad had,” who worked until his death at age 94, “and we’ve just kept it.”
Jim Fowler is retired publisher and editorial director of Scrap.
Larry’s Legacy
Born: Oct. 31, 1931, in Kansas City, Mo.
Education: Earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 1952 and attended one year of law school at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, ending in 1953.
Military: Served in the U.S. Naval Reserve in Kansas City from 1950 to 1958 as a Personnelman 2nd Class.
Family: Married Beverly Gilgus on Nov. 9, 1952. One daughter, Barbara, and one son, Jeffrey, as well as four grandchildren.
Career: Joined Mallin Brothers Co. as a full-time, equal partner in 1952 and now serves as CEO.
Community and Philanthropic Service: Officer of Kehilath Israel Synagogue in Kansas City; advisory board member of the Boy Scouts of America Heart of America Council (Kansas City); and fundraising chair for Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care.
Honors: Silver Beaver, the council-level distinguished service award of the Boy Scouts of America.
Personal Influences: Harry Mallin, his father; Harold and Budd Lewin of Lewin-Mathes Co. (St. Louis); and Henry “Hank” Schweich of Cerro Copper Products Co. (East St. Louis, Ill.).
Hobby: Ham radio operator for 40 years, with postcard recognition from every continent and 90 percent of the countries in the world. Call letters—KCOCS.
Larry Mallin credits his stellar career in the specialized world of wire chopping to his adherence to Boy Scout principles, a no-debt business philosophy, and hassle-free customer service.